Coming Home...

I'm riding home on the plane suffering from waves of sadness kind of like nausea.  I'd been forcing through the motions of my last days.  Seeing the kids at loco run after me calling, 'glennie, glennie', for the last time.  Driving through town with a stone in my throat exposed the attachments that have been forming over these months.  I wouldn't trade this sadness because it's what lets me know I am close to a people and a place.  I have been blessed with some beautiful Ugandan friends.  Last night strong lilly was crying on the phone.  Morris lamented that it 'won't be the same'.  Esther says it will be weeks before she recovers. Sarah and Shakeela hung their heads like mourners.  Damali and I will go back to skyping. Morris-same.  Ben will help coordinate our ongoing work in his cordial respectful way. Timothy will let me know how dear Brian is doing if he can figure out how his email works.  Abdu will start the farmers to children program and email me the pictures of his expanding farm and children eating eggs. 

I can't say I know what the answers are for someone like me in Uganda but it has been a sheer gift to have the chance to alleviate some suffering...if only for a little while.  It has been a dream to have this unfettered freedom and the resources to make things happen for people who are crushed by poverty.  Who gets to do that?  I was only able to do these things because people close to me back home were unbelievably generous in allowing me to use their money to best of my abilities.  I really don't know how to thank all of you who funded the work we did.  I will be giving a comprehensive account of all our spending when my head clears.  There is nothing like being present for the tears in the eyes of a father who is overwhelmed with gratitude for his daughter's surgery or the first hand experience of seeing funding support the work of a program that is saving a child from a life sniffing glue on the streets of Lira.  It has made me feel alive in places within that are often fast asleep.

You gave me the chance to provide medicine for the sick one's at the baby home, beds for street kids in Lira, school fees for children with no parents, improving sanitation for the 800 at loco village, clothes for kids with nothing on their backs, a vehicle for ATIN Afrika to do its work of resettlement, a washing machine for Sonrise baby home and their countless diapers,  supplies for young homeless pregnant mothers, surgeries for Sharon, George, and Brian, mobile medical clinics at Nanso, family kits for impoverished families in Wakisi, a new house for an old man living under maize stalks, a loan for a carpenter, the development of the 'Farmers for Children School Nutrition Program' with farmer Abdu and many more day to day opportunities to improve someone's living conditions .    

There's a gap of words and understanding with our friends in Uganda so we relied on the exposure of our hearts to tell each other who we are.  Through a tear we often understood each other much better than we could ever manage with words.  Flying home I feel the ache of having been touched by a people.  Brian's small frame hugging me as he waits for his surgery is one of the purest forms of trust I've ever felt.  His love after the harm done to him crushed me with gentleness.  The other form of communication that felt deeper and purer than words was that of laughter.  Days start and nights end with laughter in Uganda.  I will never turn on a shower knob again without wondering if there's an electrical current running through it. Boda boda drivers transporting anything...fridges, beds, whole families...the ugandan spirit fiercely wants to 'try it'...with everything they've got, they're saying, 'tugende' or 'lets go'.  

man with leprosy

I made it home Friday afternoon.  The long travel, the cold rainy weather here, the sober reality that it’s over, and Uganda swimming through my psyche make me want to curl up and take refuge under a mountain of covers while hitting a steady diet of kraft dinner and moist cake.  But I’m excited to see friends and family who I’ve been away from for three months now and to work at processing the experiences I’ve had. 

Looking out my front window it’s amazing how few people there are on the street.  The odd car passes my house but none of them are breaking down, strapping chickens to their roof racks or tying the fish they’re gonna eat for supper to their front grills.  As I drove along the 401 by my place I saw a fella pulled over relieving himself by the side of the highway.  That’s the closest things to Uganda that I saw today.  Conversely, I was out for lunch and went to the washroom and was overwhelmed by the sheer number of urinals and stalls to choose from.  I was the only one in the there…it felt like a kind of sanitation heaven.  The place sparkled, the mirrors were startlingly accurate, and the blow dry machine was propelled by a jet engine.  I think it’s clear I can stop carrying around my own TP now.  If we happen to be talking grant me some latitude for awhile.  In the process of the tectonic plates of my worlds merging back together I don't doubt that before it's over I'll be slightly different having changed in one way or another.  Also, jet lag has a way of making you look like you're under the influence of a substance.  Working where I do I trust my work mates and the men will distinguish between the two.